Don’t Starve Review

Don’t Starve is a survival action-adventure game developed by Klei Entertainment and is available on PC, Mac, Linux and PS4. You can purchase this game through Steam.

Difficulty: Medium/Hard

Gameplay Score: 3.5/5

Graphics Score: 3.5/5

Music: 4/5

You are dropped off in the middle of a field by a snarky looking man/demon who comments on your plight. After he disappears you are left to fend for yourself with no instructions whatsoever.The game is set in a dark eccentric 3D world that uses music and colour to create an ambiance of mystery and at times, urgency. Monsters come out at night and you better be somewhere safe and near a fire. The detail is extraordinary in this game and each map is randomized and unique. As you sit by the campfire you may find eyes watching you from the shadows and when daylight comes a breath of relief is necessary.

Introduction:

The devil himself

The controls are simple: Use your mouse to move the character around and right-click or left-click to interact with items. You can also choose to use WASD to control your character but I prefer the mouse. It’s quickly evident that the goal is to survive this harsh land. A very fertile and rich harsh land. As I walked around and gathered items, the bar on the left turned green indicating that item creation is available. The first thing I made was an axe after gathering 1 twig and 1 flint and with it I was able to chop down trees and gather log. With that log I was able to create a fire and survive the first night.

Basic Gameplay:

Those eyes…they’re watching you

There are three different bars that you have to upkeep. The first is hunger where you can replenish through trapping rabbits, eating berries and carrots and even cooking them in the fire for an added bonus. The second is the sanity bar where you can increase by picking flowers, shaving your beard or as you progress further into the game, sleeping in a tent. The third bar is your health. It will go down when attacked by animals and monsters but can be replenished by eating cooked food or once discovered, by creating salves to heal wounds. Hunger must be replenished daily, while the sanity bar goes down much slower. The health bar will stay up as long as you are not attacked but you can’t avoid the creepy crawlers forever.

Map of uncovered areas

The game provides many different means to survive. Crafting weapons and armor to defend and attack monsters to gather necessary materials to progress is a huge part of the game. There are also different biomes in the game where different items or monsters will spawn. The lush green surface will provide trees for logging and flowers to maintain your sanity while other biomes like rocky lands will provide areas to mine and gather rocks and minerals. The savannah biome is a place for grass to grow and for creatures like beefaloes, rabbits and pig-men to spawn. These creatures drop eyes such as manure that can be used to eventually create a basic farm. New item recipes can be discovered by unlocking science machines. The first one you unlock is a basic one that allows you make planks of wood, shovels, grass walls, ropes and cut stone.

Items to craft

Given all this, where would you build your home base? How far should you explore every day? Should I go into that wormhole that would teleport me to some far off land with strong and dangerous creatures? Should I jump down that pit and roam the tunnels and labyrinth underground?

These questions will lead every person to discover their own unique story and gameplay experience.

Review:

Lets not go near the spider den…

I really liked the design and the ambiance of the game. The music was very well-done and is definitely an integral factor of the game play experience. It was easy to pick up even without instructions and the item creation was intuitive. If senpai likes exploration and survival games I would highly recommend this.

As close to the fire as possible

Other things I noted was that it’s quite easy to die in this game especially in the beginning when you don’t know what you’re doing and you go and
attack that beefaloe instead of picking up its manure. However, this is part of the experience and lot of it requires trial and error. It is frustrating when you lose everything you’ve gathered and you’re forced to start in a new map that might not be as convenient as your old one. That being said, you learn very quickly what not to do.

If there is one thing that I wish this game could have is an auto-run button. My fingers were getting tired from running around and holding down the mouse button but I am spoiled by open world MMOs.

I really hope you try out this game Senpai, the monsters are freakishly cute and the music can make you feel like the bogeyman will crawl out from under your bed.

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